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IPOC, Ocean Properties reach agreement

What a difference a new owner makes, according to Longboat Key Town Commission candidate Irwin Pastor.

Pastor, vice president of the Islandside Property Owners Coalition, told the Longboat Observer last week that Ocean Properties Ltd. has reached a tentative settlement agreement with IPOC for a future scaled-back renovation of the Longboat Key Club and Resort.

Ocean Properties executives met with Pastor and IPOC President Bob White before they purchased the club Oct. 31.

“They made it perfectly clear they love the character of the island and said they don’t want to fight with property owners,” Pastor said.

According to Pastor, Ocean Properties executives have agreed to a proposed settlement that mandates the company come before the unit owners to present a future project before it’s presented to the town.

Pastor has seen preliminary plans for a project that calls for roughly 350 tourism and residential units that would all be placed on the south parcel near New Pass. Nothing will be put on the north parcel. That is a relief to property owners, says Pastor.

“If something like that is eventually submitted, it’s much more appropriate for the Key as a whole,” Pastor said. “I’m not just working behind the gates here, but have this whole island’s best interests at heart.”

Ocean Properties executives declined to comment. No application for a Key Club project is expected soon.

Ocean Properties officials are currently working with the town to get its other Key property, the Longboat Key Hilton Beachfront Resort, renovated. Ocean Properties wants to redevelop 102 rooms at the existing resort and add 85 more rooms that would be built in a new guest tower.

Pastor, IPOC’s official mediator with Loeb Partners Realty when it owned the Key Club and filed a renovation application that never came to fruition, says Ocean Properties’ relationship with IPOC is strong.

“Ocean Properties Ltd. is a good neighbor,” Pastor said.

Pastor said he believes that Loeb never had any intention of building a new Key Club project.

“We had a negotiation with Loeb executives that was presided over by a judge a couple of months before Ocean Properties bought the club,” Pastor said. “They wouldn’t even talk at the session, and I walked out knowing there was already a buyer in place.”